<p>Syracuse is on a path to run out of money, not intelligent students. I do agree that the academic quality of the school has been a little slow at keeping up with it’s peers.</p>
<p>Newhouse is nice, but I think the main reason that Syracuse’s US News ranking (which I don’t think means much) is dropping is because departments which are traditionally important to research universities, aren’t that strong at SU. I do think this issue is being addressed and has seen tangible improvements such as the building of the new life sciences building, although this may be too little too late. Some “important” departments such as engineering and information technology are pretty good but IMO seemed to be considered second behind Newhouse and Whitman. Either way, without extremely strong science, math, law, economics, and business programs, then many people won’t consider Syracuse a top tier school. To my knowledge, the only top tier programs at Syracuse are in Newhouse, Public Affairs, in the iSchool, and Entrepreneurship. There may be another program or two that is pretty good that I don’t know about, but to be honest, most of it is average or below average.</p>
<p>The school needs to realize that although diversity is good, no matter how intelligent these diverse students are, diverse students are more likely to be poor, which means that the cost of financial aid to the school will be proportionally higher compared to it’s peers. This can only be sustainable with a large endowment, supported by a large number of alumni. I paid for a small fraction of my tuition, room and board, and plan on giving back to SU in the future.</p>
<p>Choosing to move out of the Big East into the ACC was an obvious play to increase applications which will lead to more selectivity. Traditionally, football attracts more applications than basketball. Also, Syracuse and Pittsburgh moving to the ACC will expand our reputation into the south, most notably, North Carolina. Charlotte and Raleigh have a booming job market, but Syracuse’s reputation doesn’t go much further south than DC.</p>
<p>Having spent the last 4 years at the school, among the students, I feel as if the atmosphere is one that feels as if certain programs lack quality, while others receive lots of attention. I feel as if students dislike the large class sizes, and many are disappointed with the quality of the professors. Personally, I think that some of the professors in the econ department are a joke. The econ club is a joke and lacks proper support from the faculty, although it did start up last year due to student initiative. On top of this, it was entirely too difficult to get the proper econ classes that I needed, and there are a couple that I wanted to take that I never had the chance to. I’ve had 2 new professors (in the econ dept.) who lacked proper experience. ECN 310 social issues is a joke and should not count towards upper-level econ credits. ECN 365 and 481 are excellent and should be mandatory for econ majors. Maxwell and A&S desperately need to be separated. Then the econ dept will flourish, and the the A&S school will be able to focus on improving it’s own programs.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that the quality of the academic programs at Syracuse University are starting to lag behind it’s peers no matter how you look at it. We need more students, housing, and alumni to support the higher “cost” of diverse students. SU simply doesn’t have the amount of successful alumni backing it that is needed to support so much financial aid to students and aid to the city.</p>
<p>Syracuse University
Economics, Class of 2011</p>